Tej groaned and flicked his camera onto mute for a moment. “What the hell is wrong with you, Marco? Put a little life into it. Get something to drink. Get out there and mingle.”
Marco’s stomach tightened with mixed fear and pleasure so intense it made his head swim. He tried to push past it. “I need to find Roy first,” he muttered.
“Say hi to the host, sure. Someone raised you right.”
“Yeah. That’s it.” Marco stretched his neck, peering over the crowd—and found Roy like the sun at the centre of his own little solar system as people paused to greet him, then moved on. A trio of Bollywood starlets clustered around him while their own vid-jockey worked the angles. Roy grinned for the camera, teeth flashing as bright as the intense eyes that had looked out from Marco’s photo for so many weeks.
The CEO of Zinmar-MacKenzie stood so close under the screen set to Tej’s feed that he probably hadn’t noticed Marco’s arrival yet. Marco clenched his hand into a fist, then forced it open again. “This way,” he said.
He didn’t bother to check to see if Tej followed him, but just pushed into the crowd. Manicured hands reached out to slap his arms and back as he passed. Praise and congratulations for his victory swelled around them. He barely felt or heard either. Only the most utterly oblivious fans tried to cling to him or failed to get out of his way.
Roy was facing away when he emerged from the crowd, still occupied with the trio of actresses. Marco hesitated for a moment. How did you greet the man you’d been sent to kill?
“Mr. Roy?” he said. “Eric?”
Roy swung around, opening up a good view of the starlets—and of the man who stood on his other side. Shock drove a spike of dopamine through Marco.
Cool as chrome, Jameson gave him a plastic smile.
Marco froze. Roy didn’t seem to notice. “Marco Cole!” Teeth and eyes flashed in a grin that was everything Jameson’s wasn’t. “I am enjoying your fights, sir!” He stuck out his hand.
Jameson’s face twitched in anticipation. His chin rose just slightly in almost imperceptible encouragement. Do it.
Marco reached for the offered hand—
—and missed it as Roy spread his arms and stepped in close to give him a back-slapping hug. “You’re going to be huge, damn it! Huge!”
Marco’s deadly palm stuck out uselessly in the air behind him. The man wore a jacket. Skin-to-skin contact, Jameson had said. Marco bent this arm, thumping Roy’s back in return. Over his shoulder, Jameson’s mouth had tightened into a thin, cold line.
The starlets laughed as if nothing at all was amiss. Roy turned at the sound, one arm staying around Marco’s shoulders as he pulled him forward. “Marco, the Alahan sisters. I think you’ll recognize them from their movies. More proof that everyone loves Stomp Brawl.”
“Not just for the fighting, Eric,” said the tallest of the three. Her eyes roamed over Marco as hungrily as Tej’s camera. One of her sisters laughed again and poked an elbow into her ribs.
“Careful of that one, Marco,” Roy said. “If you think some of your opponents in the ring have been tough . . .” He turned Marco, bringing him face to face with Jameson, the hard set of his mouth once more plastic and mild. “And now the exception to the rule. VP of Arctic Operations for Zinmar-MacKenzie, Evan Cameron. First time I’ve ever managed to drag him to a Stomp Brawl tournament and I still don’t know why he agreed to come.”
Because, Marco thought, he wanted to watch his boss die. He wanted to step up and take control in the chaos afterward. Dutta Geological had nothing to do with this.
The man he knew as Jameson just smiled and self-consciously slid his hand into his pocket.
“Hey, none of that.” Eric Roy pulled away from Marco and grabbed Jameson’s arm. “He’s not going to bite. Shake hands with him.”
Jameson’s eyes flicked to Marco.
We chose you because you’re a fighter, Marco. That’s all we want you to do. Fight and win.
Shock and fear ebbed before a cleansing certainty. Marco smiled. “That’s right, Evan. Come on.” He stuck out his hand and watched Jameson swallow—then stand straight and give in to Roy’s urging.
His eyes didn’t leave Marco’s as he returned the handshake. His grip was clammy, but it was solid.
“There you go,” said Roy, slapping them both on the back. “You boys get to know each other. Marco, tell Evan something about Stomp Brawl. Evan—well, whatever. I’ll be back.” He turned away, offering his arms to the Alahan sisters. “Ladies . . .”
As soon as Roy’s back was to them, Marco squeezed. Not hard, but enough to keep Jameson from pulling away. The man who had turned him into a killer stiffened. “Don’t do it,” he said under his breath.
“Give me a reason not to,” Marco growled.
Jameson’s mouth opened and closed, then he asked, “How much do you want?”
In the background, Marco heard Tej clear his throat. “Uh, Marco—we’re losing ratings here. People want to see the party, not you shaking hands.”
“Just a second, Tej.” He met Jameson’s eyes and named a price. “Too much?”
Jameson hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. “No such thing. You’ll get it.”
“We go our separate ways. I never see you, you never see me.”
The smile crept back onto Jameson’s face. “Of course.”
“And him?” Marco jerked his head at Roy as he talked with the Alahan sisters and a pair of fighters fresh from the Stomp Brawl ring.
“Don’t give him a second thought,” said Zinmar-MacKenzie’s VP of Arctic Operations.
Marco looked back at Jameson—then let him go. Jameson took back his hand, wriggling his fingers cautiously, and bent his head. “Good luck with the rest of your fights, Marco,” he said. He turned and walked into the crowd.
The last Marco saw of him, he was reaching for his cell. Marco turned as well, grabbed a drink from a passing server, and slammed it back without seeing what it was. The alcohol burned down his throat.
“Marco,” said Tej.
He looked up. Tej’s eyes were sharp behind the images that flickered over his glasses. He tapped his camera. The red mute light was on again, but so was a blinking green light. “Did you know these things have audio enhancement?”
“Doesn’t matter.” He grabbed a second drink. “How much did you stream?”
“I cut away.”
“Good. How much did you hear?”
“Enough.”
The vid-jockey practically had dollar signs rolling across his eyes like an old cartoon. “Forget the money, Tej,” Marco told him. He took another drink, this time for Tej, and passed it to him. “I can’t give you a cut of something I’m never going to get.”
“You don’t think he’s going to follow through? What did you have against him anyway?” The greed vanished from Tej’s face, replaced by fear. “Is he going to put a hit on you?”
“He’s going to try, but I don’t think he’s that fast. Forget him. He’s a piece of crap.” He clinked his glass against Tej’s. “Unmute your camera and let’s show the fans around the party before we leave. We’ve got about fifteen minutes.”
bigfoot cured my arthritis
ROBERT COLMAN
I was no different from the rest,
only beyond weak as he walked the clearing.
Crippled up, cut from fear, I said,
“Alright, I’m all yours to gut or throw,
I’m all tapped out.”
And that’s when he rested
the weight of his arms on mine,
a warmth wriggling free
of the cold threat of air.
I wondered at the root of his magic,
those imposing, slab-like hands,
the matted fur, the smell of him
working through my joints.
Just placing my palm in his
was monumental,
another idea—
not really a hand at all.
A form of mythology that heals
by proving itself true.
wing
AMAL EL-MOHTAR
In a café lit by morning, a girl with a book around her neck sits quietly at a table.
She reads—not the book around her neck, which is small, only as long and as wide as her thumb, black cord threaded through a sewn leather spine, knotted shut. She reads a book of maps and women, turns every page as if it were a lock of hair, gently. Every so often, her fingers stray to the book that sits above her sternum, twist it one way, then the other; every so often, she sips her tea.
“What is written in your book?” asks the man who brought her the tea. She looks up.
It is said, she reads, that a map drawn on a virgin’s skin creates a land on the other side of the moon. Whole civilisations rise, whole empires are built in the time it takes for bath water and scented soap to tear its minarets down, smash its aqueducts, strike its flying machines from the star-sewn sky. This is likely nonsense, but as no one has been to the other side of the moon, it remains entirely possible.
The man blushes, then frowns. “That’s nice,” he says, “but I meant in your book. The one you wear. What is written there?”
The girl’s lashes touch her cheeks. “A secret.”
He opens his mouth to ask another question, then shuts it. He walks away.
The girl with the book around her neck sits quietly beneath a chestnut tree.
She reads a book with a halved pomegranate on the cover, a wasp stamping its black feet in the juice. She turns every page as if she were lifting a veil, delicately. The sun is bright against the paper, makes the words swim green against her eyes.
Another girl comes by, her hair curly, her step light. She wears a bag over one shoulder, and sits down near the girl with the book around her neck. She smiles. The girl with the book around her neck smiles back. The girl with the bag pulls out a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, a small jar of amber honey, and a knife; she begins to slice, to pair, to drizzle honey on the lot.
“What are you reading?” she asks, curious.
Once, reads the girl, only once, for never has this happened since, nor is it likely to, a bird lit down on the head of a young man seated beneath a peach tree. The bird’s plumage was most fine, smooth as linen, bright as the afternoon sun drinking garden petals. The man could not gaze at it, but sat very still, so as not to disturb it; he closed his eyes, for even the barest flash of tail or pinion as it shifted about his scalp was painful to him, was too beautiful for his gaze. The bird whispered in his ear the secret to immortality, which involved the consumption of nectar, the building of a fire, and the bathing of his limbs in a sacred pool. So deep was the young man’s gratitude, so fierce was his love for the beautiful creature perched on his head, that his heart burst in his chest and he died on the spot.
The girl with the bag, who had begun to chew her honeyed cheese and bread, coughs a little as she laughs. She wipes her mouth modestly and offers the girl with the book around her neck a morsel of her own. She accepts it, and they munch together in silence. Then, as they are rubbing their fingers together to clean the honey from them, the girl with the bag asks, “What is written in the book around your neck?”
She blushes. “A secret.”
“Oh,” says the other girl. They spend a few more moments together, before the girl with the bag gathers up her effects, bids the girl with the book around her neck a kind farewell, and goes on her way.
The girl with the book around her neck sits quietly on a jutting rock by the sea.
The sea is not quiet; the sea is an angry choir of dissonant voices, all taking turns striking their rage against the shore. The waves curl foamy fingers towards the rocks, smash their delicate salt bones to glass. Everywhere is a fine damp mist.
The girl has no book to hand. She pulls back the left sleeve of her raincoat, dips her fingers into a tidal pool, lifts a mixture of sand and clay from it, and tries to draw a map on her skin.
It is not thick enough; the wet sand will not make lines, only prickle her as it winds its way along her forearm. She pulls her sleeve back down. She looks out at the sea, at the gulls mewling, the crows cawing, and tries to think of a song.
A boy approaches the rock on which she sits. He looks up at her. She looks down at him.
He wears a raincoat too, grey as the sea, and a dark blue scarf around his neck to keep the damp from his throat. It is sensible; she does the same. They look at each other a long moment.
Then he says, “Would you like to hear a story?”
She nods.
“It is said that once every five hundred and sixty-three days, two people will walk on the beach with matching raincoats. It is further said that every one thousand one hundred and twenty-six days, these people will have matching shoes. But it is rare as a bird with feathers linen-smooth, rare as a city on the dark side of the moon, that they will both wear books around their necks, and rarer still that those books will hold secrets.”
“Come up,” whispers the girl to the boy with a book around his neck. “Come up here.”
He does, with his hands to the rock, his shoes like hers, his coat like hers. He unbuttons the collar, unwinds the scarf from his neck. There is a book there, the same length and width as hers, black cord threaded through its sewn leather spine, knotted shut. He reaches for the knot with slender fingers.
“Wait,” she says, “wait.” She unbuttons her collar, unwinds her scarf, bares her own book for the opening, bites her lip as she looks at him. “Are you sure?”
“I want to tell you a secret,” he says, firm.
They open their books. They turn every page as if touching each other’s cheeks. They read the same word, the only word, buried in each book’s deepest heart, nestled up against its sewn leather spine, behind its knotted ribs.
When the tide comes in, it finds a clutch of soft grey feathers sticking to the rocks, spilling from the pages of two tiny books with no words in them. The tide yawns; it licks them like a cat; it tangles the black cord that threads them, knots them together, and swallows them into the sea.
arrow
BARRY KING
The day I was chosen by Fletcher, I had killed Civet. Sango and Chelo and I were playing with our barbañas—the small bows given to boys to play at hunting. Papa had been unhappy with me for killing the small sparrows that cluster like mice on thin branches. Like mice, they have no wisdom, no breath-spirit, he told me.
That day, I was leader of our little hunting-party. I wanted to take away the shame I felt, so I called the hunt in the early hours, and we went, barefoot in the cool damp of early morning. I remember us being very serious, as only boys can be when they play at being men.
Civet was coming home to sleep. We smelled him first. We trod the path lightly, the swish and crackle of leaves under our feet quieter than Leopard-Cat’s wake. Pulsing choruses of shrieking birds and hissing beetles masked our breathing. We were dark and invisible in the canopy-gloom, where dawn comes late in broken blue fragments from above. I took care to keep the clearing behind me, and well that I did, because when Civet returned to his home, dawn light filled his eyes with a blue-green glow and I saw him.
I think it was because of that meeting that Fletcher chose me. There, beneath the slender bone-arms of the Batambush, Civet and I met for the first time as equals. I could see his shape against the broken sky above. One hand was raised, poised to take another step along the branch, and that’s when our eyes met, and he knew me and I knew him. He stopped for me and offered his breath-spirit to me like a mother gives her child nutmeats she has chewed herself. The spindly shaft, iron-tipped, sped true from the rickety little barbaña and caught him just below his chin, but he was already dead, having given his spirit to me with his eyes.
I picked up the shaft, and Civet hung from the end. That is
how I carried him back to our longhouse, holding him by the arrow buried in his neck, an ugly gap of red around the wound marring the pattern of his coat. His smell was strong like smoke, but animal and potent, and it surrounded us like the morning chorus, giving us the strength of his blessing. I was thrilled at my first real kill, and was looking forward to Papa’s praise, mother’s stew, and basking in the respectful gaze of Sango and Chelo, who were already looking to me as if I was Headman.
Fletcher was waiting. We did not see him until he was right there in front of us. He was sitting on a rock in the clearing, his knees up under his chin, his old, creased face the skull of Death himself. Like Death, he watched me with cold, dark, patient eyes, and for a space of a few breaths, I felt apart in the world from the others. Only Civet, myself, and the arrow that joined us were real beneath the gaze of Fletcher. He stood slowly, unfolding from his seated position until he stood above us, looking down from the rock. He stepped down lightly and made a brief gesture to the others. Sango and Chelo ran back to the longhouse without a word.
Fletcher looked at me, his head bent down, studying me and Civet. He paced around me, and I felt his eyes all over. I didn’t dare move. Then he squatted down before us and examined the arrow, running his finger along the shaft and touching Civet where the arrow pierced his coat. He ran his finger through the blood. Then he looked up and asked me, “Did you make this?”
I nodded, unable to speak.
He touched me, then, right at the breastbone, where Civet had been pierced, making a small circle. I had never seen Fletcher this close. I looked into his headdress, which swept up over his head. His hair had been woven with feathers from the Red Macaw and the Orange Pangpang. His brow was bound by a bright cloth into which thin wires of gold had been woven. They shone in the pale light coming through the mist above the canopy.
He led me back, behind the thick stilts of the longhouse, to the small hut outside where he lived apart from the clan. His two wives were outside the hut, coaxing the fire back to life from the embers. He waved them away and then told me to take the arrow out of Civet while holding him over the fire. I did. The arrow was barbed and did not come out cleanly. A trickle of blood fell from the wound and hissed on the hot coals. The smell of cooking mixed with the musky smell of the animal, mixed with the smoke from the fire. He took Civet from my hands and gave him to his older wife, a woman almost as ancient as himself, telling her to prepare a feast with her own hands and her hands alone.
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